Plaza de Mayo

Recent Articles

”Today there are more African-Americans under correctional control — in prison or jail, on probation or parole — than were enslaved in 1850… Our system of mass incarceration…has devastated many of our communities…literally turning back the clock on racial progress in the U.S.”

— Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in An Age of Colorblindness (New Press, 2010)

So who will lead the battle against this injustice of mass incarceration? Churches, nonprofits and government agencies, whose jobs rely on keeping the status quo? No. The gritty work is being done by courageous Black mothers, whose numbers will grow into a national movement (think of the Argentine mothers marching daily at the Plaza de Mayo to protest the 30,000 that were “disappeared,” 1975-1983). Were it not for the mothers of two African American inmates, Courtney Clark and Robert Hosely, at the Minnesota Corrections Medical Facility at Faribault, Minnesota, they would die without notice (see my columns of July 18 and July 25, 2012). Continue Reading →